HIGH SCHOOL ICE HOCKEY: Hildebrand powers Robbinsville past Lawrence

WEST WINDSOR — There was a time when hockey was the last thing on Eric Hildebrand’s mind.

His father was battling cancer and the surgery that unfortunately comes with the dreaded disease.

Luckily, the prognosis is looking good and Hildebrand can once again get back to worrying about line shifts and scoring goals.

He took care of scoring goals Monday, leading Robbinsville to a 6-1 season-opening win over Lawrence in a Colonial Valley Conference game played at Mercer County Rink.

“My dad is doing great and he is one of the strongest people I’ve ever known,” said Hildebrand proudly after scoring four goals. “It has helped me on the ice because he has taught me to power through anything. He’s my superhero.”

Hildebrand and the Ravens (1-0) jumped out to a 4-0 lead by early in the second period, but they had to work for every goal as the vastly improved Cardinals (0-1) weren’t giving any ground.

“I was impressed with what I saw from Lawrence,” said Ravens coach Dan Bergan. “That is the most organized and disciplined team we’ve seen on that side in a number of years. Their coach was a quality player and he’s getting that group organized. I’m glad we got them early.”

Besides the four from Hildebrand, the Ravens got single scores from Coleman Anker and Logan Fredericks. Anker and Dan Cox each had a pair of assists. Matt Reed also had a helper.

The Lawrence score, which came at 11:39 of the second period, was by Ross Doeler with an assist from Brian Reznikov and Pat Kelly.

“I was disappointed in the score,” said John Ritchie, the first-year Cardinal coach. “I thought we played better than that showed. We had a couple lapses in the first and second period that cost us . There was a lot of positive take out in the third period.”

While the Ravens had the All-Trentonian goalie, Kellen Anker, between the pipes, it was a freshman Travis “Diesel” Pelke in goal for Lawrence.

Anker was his usual reliable self with 15 saves and Pelke, the rookie, turned back 33 for the Cards.

But, the night belonged to Hildebrand, the Ravens captain.

“I’ll take a whole boatload of kids like Eric,” said Bergan. “We had a lot of good leadership in this one. It was a little bit of a scare getting through this one.”

Hildebrand knows all about scary things and he’s much happier to be putting a scare in opposing goalies.

“I was in the right place at the right time and I had a lot of help from my teammates,” said Hildebrand of his goals. “I just set my mind to it and if you set your mind to it you can accomplish anything.”

He had a pretty great role model teaching him that philosophy, his dad.